


tell me we'll never get used to it

by andnowforyaya



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17639984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: “Oh,” Ten gasps when Hendery pulls at the covers and snuggles in beside him, shifting over to make space on the narrow bottom bunk. They squeeze in together, and Ten’s body is warm like a furnace from being buried under layers for so long. He slides his headphones down and presses the spacebar on his keyboard to pause whatever is on the screen. “Hey, you.”





	tell me we'll never get used to it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naerys123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naerys123/gifts).



> for r, who wanted some sweet tendery! i love you! happy birthday!

Sometimes Hendery wonders what his parents would say if they knew he spent his nights off from practice and performances hunched over his laptop in a stuffy living room with five other boys also hunched over their laptops, furiously pressing keys on their keyboards as they all blast through a multi-shooter game. 

“Ah, ah, hey! Bastard,” Yangyang says, shooting Sicheng a pouty glare from his cross-legged position on the floor. Sicheng barely glances his way, perched on the edge of his seat on the couch and sandwiched between Kun and Xuxi. “You killed me again!”

“You move too slow,” Sicheng huffs.

“We’re on the same team!” Yangyang whines.

Sicheng shrugs and Dejun laughs and Xuxi says something that sets them all off in a round of trash talk, and Hendery dies on his screen. He sighs, taking off his headset to hear most of his bandmates playfully arguing with each other as his character recharges. Sometimes he’ll join in on the lighthearted ribbing, but tonight he just can’t seem to find the energy to -- he wants something a little quieter, a little more peaceful, so he gets up from his seat and exits out of the game. “I’m out,” he says to the group. “Yangyang, you can take my seat.”

“Score!” Yangyang says, happily rising and plopping himself comfortably in the armchair Hendery’s just vacated. “You gonna hang with Qin Ge?” he asks with an artful waggle of his eyebrows.

Hendery rolls his eyes. “Yes, you little weirdo.”

“Use protection,” Xuxi quips. Kun smacks him on the back of his head. “Ow!”

“Don’t be crude,” Kun admonishes. Then he looks at Hendery, expression too serious and bordering fatherly. “But really. Please.”

Hendery’s smile freezes on his face. “I hate all of you.” 

.

The bedroom is lit with a warm amber glow from the lamp in the corner, and Hendery chuckles when he sees Ten almost completely hidden under a mound of blankets pulled up to his chin, giant headphones over his ears and eyes trained on the screen of the laptop in front of him. A little wrinkle has formed in between his eyebrows from the intensity of his gaze. 

“Oh,” Ten gasps when Hendery pulls at the covers and snuggles in beside him, shifting over to make space on the narrow bottom bunk. They squeeze in together, and Ten’s body is warm like a furnace from being buried under layers for so long. He slides his headphones down and presses the spacebar on his keyboard to pause whatever is on the screen. “Hey, you.”

“What’re you watching?” Hendery asks. He darts forward to kiss Ten’s cheek, and Ten makes a cute happy noise that makes the butterflies in Hendery’s stomach go wild. 

“Just some drama,” Ten says, wriggling his body so that his shoulders peek out over the covers. “I’m trying to watch without subtitles,” he continues sadly.

“How’s that going?”

“Awful,” he states with a pout. “It’s too fast. And they talk like they’re all 2000 years old. I can’t understand a thing.”

Hendery glances at the screen. A woman dressed in silks and an elaborate headpiece stands before an Imperial court of men and women bowing before her. “Period pieces are hard for me, too,” he empathizes. “So many riddles and poems. Talking in circles about love and power.”

“Oh, those are themes that I like, though.”

Looking over, Hendery can see Ten’s eyes glittering, the lips of his pink mouth curled into a grin. 

“You like love and power?” 

Ten nods. “How do you say ‘power’ in Mandarin?” Hendery can tell he’s already trying to think of the words as the question leaves his mouth, and so he waits a moment to see if Ten can come up with the vocabulary himself before supplying it.

“What about ‘sacrifice’?” Ten asks next. “They say it a lot in this film but I want to hear you say it.”

Hendery says it, and Ten’s lips part and his eyelashes flutter. Their faces draw closer to each other.

“Say something else,” Ten commands.

Hendery pauses, thinking, struck by the way the light cuts across Ten's cheekbones, the way his skin glows. “You’re so pretty,” Hendery says, in Cantonese, and Ten squints at him with his mouth pinched, eyes curious. Hendery could say it in any language he speaks -- Mandarin, English, Korean -- and he thinks the words would never truly capture the weight behind his meaning. Ten sucks up all the light in the room and reflects it back like a diamond, multi-faceted and brilliant. He draws the eye like the very tip of a knife point, dangerous and hypnotizing. He dances like the fluttering of a ribbon falling to the ground. 

“What’s that mean?” Ten asks, quiet, tucked against Hendery’s side. He mouths the words Hendery spoke to himself, lips shaping the sounds. It’s familiar, like a taste he can’t quite identify but comes back to over and over again. When it clicks, he flushes pink and soft and cute, grinning. “Oh,” he says. “It sounds close to the Mandarin. Say something else in Cantonese.”

“Is this a Canto language lesson, now?” Hendery teases.

“Say something else,” Ten pleads again. “Aren’t you my teacher? I want to see if I can get it.”

“Okay,” Hendery says. “How about: I came in here because I missed you, even though it’s only been an hour since dinner. I felt so happy the first time you kissed me, after the lesson when you thought you’d give up on Mandarin. I knew you wouldn’t really give up. That’s not you. I felt even happier when we got together for real. I still can’t quite believe it sometimes. Strange, right? When I look at you, suddenly I understand needing fifty different metaphors to describe love and beauty, like they do in these movies.”

Hendery pauses, breathless and a little light-headed from his confessions, and Ten just looks at him with adoration in his eyes. The smaller of the two snuggles even closer, resting his chin on Hendery’s shoulder and tilting his head against him. He sighs, and their bodies melt toward each other.

Ten says, “You just said a bunch of really sappy stuff, didn’t you?”

“You can’t prove it,” Hendery whispers.

Ten tilts his face up toward Hendery’s and presses his mouth to the corner of Hendery’s lips. “I think you’re really pretty and awesome and lovely, too,” he whispers back like a secret into his ear. “Now come on, what did you come in here for?”

Hendery grins, and Ten pushes his laptop down to the end of the bed.

“You,” Hendery says, in Mandarin, and then again, in English.

“That, I understand,” Ten says with a sneaky smirk, throwing his leg over Hendery’s thighs.

.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos greatly appreciated <3
> 
> i'm on twitter as well @ andnowforyaya


End file.
